At the Dock Bar
M.A. Istvan, Jr.
​

We went from a case of beer on the rowboat
to a marina bar on the bank of the Hudson.
Mad whenever my father got sloppy,
I refused to go in with him and his friend,
Ronny. In Ronny’s truck I found a pouch
of chewing tobacco, a red-faced Indian
on the front in full feather headdress.

Having chewed the sweet black twists
on the shore by myself in preteen defiance,
by sunset I was dizzy and seeing things.
Ronny and my dad urinated by the truck
before getting in. Ronny hung back a sec,
he announced, to tug life into his penis
for an evening date after dropping us off.

​Lying on my back in bed I was spiraling
in a vertiginous panic, the day of waves
amplified by the sweet fluid that I forgot
to spit out the first few wads. The image
came of Ronny’s right side atwitch, his back
to us in the new dark. I figured his date to be
a hooker since he was as old as my grandpa.